Page 20 of Bonds of Hate

She watches Mercedes stumble away, a pensive expression on her face. When she turns back and catches me watching her, that expression changes to one of outright derision. “Can I help you?”

“Not at all.”

Perkins bustles up again and taps me on the shoulder. “Maya Tantamount? Prince Logan is ready for you.”

Saffron’s keen gaze follows me as I push to my feet on legs I refuse to let shake.

“Maya Tantamount,” she repeats, recognition burning in her gaze. “I would wish you good luck, but I doubt it would help.”

I pick up the champagne glass and quickly drain it.

No turning back now.

Chapter Three

ARES

This shit stopped being fun about three hours ago.

I can’t pinpoint the moment that Logan got a hate boner for Omegas, but it’s been getting worse for months. He isn’t exactly Prince Charming with betas, either, but he’ll at least acknowledge they’re good for something.

Watching him verbally abuse and degrade an endless parade of Omega hopefuls isn’t the turn-on I hoped it would be when he sprung this assignment on us. The king says choose an Omega, and that’s what he has to do. At this point, the rest of us are just along for the ride.

Despite his attitude around finding a mate, I figured Logan would eventually settle down. I didn’t think we’d have to interview a dozen of them one-by-one like something out of a fractured fairy tale.

If we were trying to find a fit for Cinderella’s glass panties, then I might be onboard.

“How many girls do you need to meet before you pickone?” I grouse. My back is aching from holding up the wall for half the day.

Logan glances down at the tablet beside him, expression bored. “There are at least five more on the list.”

“You can’t be fucking serious. Can you just choose one already so we can find something better to do with our day?”

The last one had just burst into tears and ran for it, her blue dress catching in the door as it closed because she was in such a hurry to get out of the room. She was pretty enough, if a little too easy to fluster for my liking. Any of them would have served the purpose. An Omega is an Omega. Mate them. Mark them. Breed them. You still end up in the same place at the end.

Setting the tablet aside, Logan stretches before settling indolently back in the chair. “I’m going to be stuck with one of them for the rest of my life. You can’t rush this sort of thing.”

I roll my eyes. “This isn’t rocket science. You pick one, bond her, and stick her in the harem when you get sick of her.”

Logan’s expression darkens. “Mate, not bond. My father didn’t say anything about bonding an Omega. He just wants to see them pregnant with his son’s heirs. I assume he is thinking in terms of dynasty.”

I want to point out that bonding is what makes the mating so easy, but decide against it at the look on his face. Mating is a legal concept, similar to marriage for betas. The bond, that permanent spiritual link formed between an Alpha and Omega when the former marks the latter with a bite during their heat cycle.

Mates might be temporary, bonds are permanent.

The subject of Omegas has always been a sensitive one with Logan, for reasons he has never chosen to share. Assuming, of course, that the spoiled bastard even has a reason.

I just shake my head, holding my hands up in a placating gesture. “Same difference to me, but whatever you say, man.”

Cillian shifts in his ready guard stance. The leather creaking from his weapon holsters is the only evidence that he is getting as sick of this as the rest of us. He has been standing in the corner since the first Omega ran crying from the room, but you wouldn’t know from his stoic facade.

As a beta, Cillian is supposed to be the stabilizing influence of our group dynamic. He and Logan have been together practically since they were both in diapers, but that doesn’t make it any easier to get through to him when the prince acts like a jackass.

“There was nothing wrong with that last one,” Cillian offers, voice even.

“If I had to put up with another minute of that sniveling attitude, I was going to give her an actual reason to cry like that. Plus, that voice was just grating.”

“You told her you were going to put her over a table and let us all take turns, so she’d have four different types of cum dripping down her thighs when she went in for her next interview,” Cillian points out, voice even. “That might have something to do with the tears.”

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